


I don't invite the headrush but it follows me

by MagicaLyss



Series: Bluer Than The Sky (Whumptober 2019) [8]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, BAMF May Parker (Spider-Man), Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Peter Parker, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Protective May Parker (Spider-Man), Villain Quentin Beck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-20 23:49:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21065225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicaLyss/pseuds/MagicaLyss
Summary: For Whumptober Days 9 & 10 - Shackled and UnconsciousHe tests the metal holding him, confusion more prominent than fear. He’s Spider-Man, he shouldn’t really fear anything, especially after everything he’s had to face.But this is different. This wasn’t being kidnapped on his way to pick up Morgan, this isn’t following a bad guy into a trap, this isn’t being taken. This is his lab, his home.





	I don't invite the headrush but it follows me

**Author's Note:**

> sorry in advance - I really meant to put more comfort at the end but I'm just really tired and wanted this to be done oops so it doesn't have a lot of comfort after the hurt
> 
> Kind of SM FFH spoilers. A little bit??

Waking up in the lab isn’t too abnormal for a workaholic like Peter. It’s not weird to have a crick in his neck and vaguely aching joints and muscles. It’s not out of the ordinary to have a pounding headache and a shout on his lips.  
  


What is abnormal, though, is to wake with his hands and ankles tied.  
  


Thick metal encircles his wrists, attaching him to the table leg. He’s sitting awkwardly propped up on a chair, one of the ones bolted to the floor, ankles separately cuffed to the chair legs.  
  


He tests the metal holding him, confusion more prominent than fear. He’s Spider-Man, he shouldn’t really _fear _anything, especially after everything he’s had to face.

  
But this is different. This wasn’t being kidnapped on his way to pick up Morgan, this isn’t following a bad guy into a trap, this isn’t being _taken_. This is his lab, his home.  
  


He tugs a little harder at the chains, but they don’t budge.  
  


“You won’t be able to free yourself, Spider-Man,” a voice drawls somewhere behind him. He tries to jerk around to see him, but he can’t strain his neck far enough to find the source of the disturbingly familiar voice.  
  


“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, trying not to let his sudden chill of fear show. This man knows he’s Spider-Man. Only a very select few people know that.  
  


A laugh, chilling and echoing in the lab. “The internet will love this, Petey.”  
  


Peter flinches at the nickname, wishing Morgan’s nickname for him wouldn’t be hurt in this way. “What do you mean? The internet?”  
  


“Didn’t think I’d film this, did you?” the man continues condescendingly. “Once we’re done here, this will be uploaded for the world to see, Spidey. They’re going to _hate _you. They’re finally going to see how weak and pathetic their dear hero really is.”  
  


There aren’t many options Peter has.  
  


The shackles are too strong for him to break out of. He’s the sole leader of Stark Industries. It’s not weird for him to be on a work binge. Nobody’s going to question it.  
  


“FRIDAY?” Peter says.  
  


There’s no response and the man laughs. “Yeah, you thought I’d overlook that, didn’t you? She’s been disabled for ‘updates.’"  
  


Tony, Pepper, and Morgan are all retired a few miles outside of the city. Tony wouldn’t even question Peter not calling for a few days, probably assuming Peter’s busy with running a multi-billion-dollar company.  
  


May’s been going to nursing school to finally finish the degree she wanted to get. They’ve both been too busy to really call more than once or twice a week.  
  


Nobody’s _really_ going to notice for at least a few days. And Peter’s absolutely screwed.  
  


“Before you ask,” the man continues, a strange metallic noise ringing through the air. “I’m not going to go on a villian-esque rant about how _I _deserved this company or at least more than what I got. I’m not going to bore you with my life story. All you need to know is that this isn’t going to be fun for you, but I’m going to have a wonderful time.”  
  


Peter rolls his eyes. “I get it. Whatever. You wanted the company, Tony didn’t give it to you. He chose me. Therefore, it’s my fault. I feel like this is a pretty boring story, isn’t it?”  
  


A fist slams down onto the table behind Peter, making him flinch, chains rattling against the metal chair legs.  
  


But just as fast as the anger came, it disappears again. “Anywho, I’m not on a time crunch, but I’m a little too excited to wait any longer.”  
  


The footsteps that slowly move around Peter are deliberate, making it last as long as the man can, letting the tension build up inside of Peter.  
  


And then,  
  


“Beck?”  
  


Peter recognizes one of the employees he used to work with back when he used to just be in charge of R&D. He was always a little bit intimidating to work with because he used to have angry mood swings, blowing up at anyone, anytime. And Peter, the kind of person who actively avoids conflict, didn’t want to have to deal with that.  
  


“You’re angry because of BARF, aren’t you?” He remembers, vaguely, hearing the conversation between Pepper and Tony a few years back. Beck had tried to get his job back not long after the snap, but Tony had recognized him before Pepper could hire him again.  
  


Beck sneers, hand gripping the old camera in one hand shaking. “Of course, I’m angry. Did you think I wouldn’t care? Stark took _everything _from me.”  
  


Peter just rolls his eyes, tugging a little bit at the chains.  
  


He doesn’t expect the hit when it comes, whiting out his vision for a few long moments as he breathes through the pain, head flung to the side with the force of the punch.  
  


“Fuck, man, you couldn’t just- I don’t know- talk to a therapist or something? I’ve heard that’s really good for someone’s-”  
  


Just because he expects it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt any less. He’s been hit by his fair share of enhanced individuals or aliens or people with inhuman strength, so Beck’s punches are much less than the strength Peter’s used to feeling, but they’re constant.  
  


There’s no fighting back, there’s nothing he can do. He can barely even pull his head back without worrying about breaking his wrists at the awkward angle of the cuffs.  
  


Beck was right, he wasn’t going to bore Peter with chatter.  
  


He spits some blood onto the tiled floor between hits, trying to find the breath again as he feels his lip split and his nose crack.  
  


Beck hits him again. And again. And again.  
  


The last thing Peter sees before he loses consciousness is a blinking red light.

  
*

When he comes to, he can barely peel his eyes open with the overwhelming swelling. He feels like he was stung by a thousand bees. He’s only ever been stung by one bee and it was when he was ten years old and he had cried because he knew that meant the bee had died. May tried to console him, but he knew the bee population was diminishing and he had killed a bee when he’d been stung-  
  


On track, he thinks, trying to grasp onto important thoughts even though his brain feels like molasses.  
  


He can hear Beck mumbling not too far from him, humming a tuneless song. One of his hands is tapping the table at an inconsistent rhythm, a dull ringing whenever his ring hits the metal table.  
  


Nobody’s gotten to him yet. Vaguely, he can hear one of the bots beeping angrily in the corner, but last he saw, they’d been broken in some way. Without wheels or batteries or whatever had been easiest to break them. Beck had thought this through.  
  


“I know you’re awake!” Beck calls out. “I’ve been so bored without you.”  
  


Peter pries his right open, left too swollen to even try. He opens his mouth to speak, but his throat is dry and the movement tugs at the cuts and bruises he knows litters his whole face. The last thing he needs is to reopen the wounds.  
  


“I’ve been watching the video,” Beck continues like Peter cares. “And even though you did perfect, amazing work done, I just feel like it could’ve used a little more… je ne sais quoi. A little bit more pizzazz.”  
  


Peter would’ve protested if he thought he could’ve moved his mouth without restarting the waterfall of blood from his lips.  
  


Instead, he watches Beck until he disappears behind Peter’s chair.  
  


And then, without warning, a sickening snap sounds through the lab.  
  


A choked sob bubbles out of Peter’s chest as he tries to move away, pain flaring from his now broken finger all the way up to his head.  
  


Beck laughs again, an awful noise that grates at Peter’s ears. “This is just the excitement I was looking for. I could make this into a _film_, Spidey, do you understand that? The money I could make.”  
  


Peter forces his mouth open, desperately pulling at his chains as cold fingers rest on his ring finger of his left hand. He doesn’t care if he bleeds, he just wants this to stop.  
  


“You can… you can have m’ney,” Peter says, tears starting to slide down his swollen face when his lip resplits and blood immediately fills his mouth.  
  


“This isn’t about money, Peter. This is about _fame_,” Beck cackles gleefully.  
  


_Crack_.  
  


Peter cries out as a second and then third finger are broken, body shaking when the pain has nowhere to go. His chest aches, his fingers burn, his whole face throbs. He doesn’t have the energy to spit the blood out, so it all just drools out of his mouth and down the front of his shirt.  
  


He only makes it through two more cracks before his mind, sludgy and murky, finally gives out to the pain.  
  


  
*

He has to save himself. There’s no other way he can get out of this.  
  


It’s probably Friday and he really can’t wait two more days for Tony to start getting antsy about Peter not responding to see why he hadn’t shown up for Sunday Night Barbeque. And even then, antsy isn’t going to get him saved.  
  


“You ready for Part Three?” Beck says, a smile on his face. It makes his eyebrows look too high and his eyes too wide, leaning over his legs. He’s sitting directly across from Peter, split knuckles the only sign of something being wrong.  
  


Peter makes an incomprehensible noise in return, chin resting on his chest, no longer the energy to hold him up. He cries out when he tries to flex his fingers. All ten are   
broken.  
  


“I’m thinking of making it a YouTube series now,” Beck’s saying, talking about fame and money and everything he apparently deserves for thinking he invented BARF. “The world is going to be so happy someone finally put Spider-Man in his place. As nothing more than a petty little bug to be squashed.”  
  


Peter can make out the camera, a few feet away, red light flashing obnoxiously. It’s sitting on a stack of miscellaneous objects as a makeshift tripod, holding it up so it’s pointed right at Peter.  
  


He just wants to go to the cabin and curl up on the couch with May and Tony. Breathe in the soft scents of rose perfume and cinnamon body wash. Wants to watch old Disney movies with Morgan. He wants his family. He wants his Dad. He wants to cry.  
  


Swallowing thickly around the metallic taste in his mouth, he tries to talk. To beg, maybe.  
  


But then the door busts open.  
  


And like the most incredible knight in shining armor, May stands in the doorway. Rhodey and Happy a few feet behind her.  
  


“Get the hell away from my kid,” she demands, gun pointed at Beck’s head. Peter, in his at least partially delirious and blurry state, realizes it’s Ben’s old police gun. The one he kept locked in a safe in their closet. B.P is engraved in the side.  
  


Beck stands quickly nearly tripping over his chair, hands raising and eyes wide. “You wouldn’t just kill someone-”  
  


“You really want to test that theory?” May says, jaw clenched and expression hardened. She clicks off the safety. “Because I’d suggest you listen to what I say before you end up with a bullet between your eyes.”  
  


Beck does as told, moving towards the wall until he’s out of Peter’s line of sight.  
  


Rhodey moves forward, a pair of cuffs dangling in one of his hands. The bots are all beeping happily, knowing Peter’s safe now. Happy follows Rhodey’s lead, blocking Peter’s view of the man further.  
  


May races over to Peter, sneakers squeaking against the floor in her hurry. She slips the gun back into the waistband of her white skirt, messy hair falling into her eyes as she sinks to her knees in front of Peter, gently cupping his face.  
  


“My baby,” she murmurs, face falling. “Oh baby. You’ll be okay. I’m here, you’re okay.”  
  


Peter blinks slowly at her, trying to hang onto reality as best as he can when his thoughts slip through his fingers like sand.  
  


“Ti… ‘m tired,” he slurs, blood slipping through his lips and dripping onto his ruined shirt.  
  


Her hands are cold and she smells like her wonderful rose perfume and she’s there and that’s all Peter’s been wanting. He doesn’t care that he’s twenty-three and shouldn’t be curling into his aunt’s embrace like he’s still a ten-year-old boy who’s been stung by a bee. He doesn’t care. All he knows is that she’s here and he’s safe.  
  


“Sleep, baby. It’s okay. Tony’s on his way. You’re safe.”  
  


  
*

It takes Peter three days of mostly sleeping and cuddling for him to heal, broken fingers very slowly mending back into place.  
  


Three days is nothing in comparison to the three months it takes for Peter to even step foot into his lab which once felt safe and homey, and is now nothing more than a torture chamber filled to the brim with bad memories now. Memories of helplessness and pain.  
  


Beck will never get out of prison and the tapes were all destroyed, but Peter doesn’t think he’ll ever forget Beck’s laughter and _excitement_, forever seared into Peter’s brain.  
  



End file.
